Angel’s patience was worn down to the quick after waiting for a on-call Dell tech to come and fix his high-end laptop, only to have the guy bungle the repair, screw up his hardware, and make him miss his date.

Angel writes:

Been a follower of The Consumerist since I can remember. And it is sad but today I find myself behind enemy lines suffering what others are suffering.

I am the IT Director for a Telecommunications company and recently acquired a Dell M6500 $4,000 + laptop. The computer worked great and all of a sudden hardware issues started to appear. I contacted their support team which actually is attached to their executive team since we buy so much volume from them and explained the situation. A problem with the monitor sRGB functionality and a fingerprint reader issue. It took the guy on the phone about 30 minutes to understand what sRGB was, so I was patient and explained.

He mentioned that he would overnight all the parts needed to be replaced in my laptop which included a motherboard, lcd, fingerprint reader, palmrest, lcd bezel, etc. He then asked if it was ok to send a technician to do the install to which I said ok.

The next day I received a call from the tech saying that he will be coming soon and to wait for him around noon, to which I said no problem. Noon came by and nothing happened, then I got a call from him saying that he couldn’t make it so we need to re-schedule for Monday morning since it was Friday already. I was patient once again since I couldn’t work on my print production work because of the sRGB and called it a Monday morning appointment it is.

Monday came and the tech called in the morning saying that he would be here by noon again, to which I responded are you sure? He agreed and hanged up.

By noon the guy showed up and asked for the computer. I was a little hesitant to handed it over since he seemed to have no degree of technical experience, but I could be wrong right?

I wasn’t. He started at noon and by 2pm he was still trying to dismount my computer like a mechanic trying to do an open heart surgery, he was pulling and gripping out the cables of my dear $4K laptop, I was like whoa, what’s going on? He seemed desperate and trying to call Dell support on the phone to explain him how to unplug a simple 4 contact cable from the motherboard onto the keyboard case. I looked and see that there was an antenna carrier that needed to be removed in order to let the cable out so I took the tools and did the job, he suddenly hanged up the phone and kept on working.

I tried to breathe and left to grab a quick late lunch, when I got back we were on the same position before there was another task he couldn’t complete. I was without words and upset so I could catch up with meetings.

Around 5PM everyone starts leaving and I am left here with him and I mention to him that I have a restaurant date with my girlfriend so how much longer? He said he was almost done. When I power up the computer it was like a Hiroshima bomb exploded from the inside out, the keyboard was slightly raised like there was a ball or something pushing it from the inside out, it looked like a wrong torqued installed keyboard to which I call his attention, the battery was in alarm saying that it was not compatible with the computer and the fingerprint sensor was completely dead still.

I asked him what’s going on and he said that’s normal until it starts up and guess what? It wasn’t. He had to call Dell to help him out.

At this time it is 7PM I had to cancel my date night and my laptop had gone through 14 reboots, the battery problem cleared but no luck with the sensor at all, not only that, the lid panel was misplaced and forcedly installed with the four clamps completely destroyed, parts of it are still inside the laptop, the wireless button to turn on the radio is not working it just gracefully slides back and forth and nothing happens.

After an hour of him talking to someone at Dell, I asked for a manager and called my sales manager, no answer but I got to talk to the manager of the guy at Dell. He tried to help with installing software, removing and remotely connecting to my laptop without any luck. He said that he would be sending an overnight package again of a pre-imaged Dell hard drive and a new keyboard to be replaced by me??

I am beyond frustration and cannot believe this from Dell. As being in the seat of an in need customer with a 4K laptop and a next day resolution warranty, I am still waiting for a resolution to come to this. Dell last statement was it should be there by Wednesday. Resolution?

Regards,
Angel

Definitely, if everything isn’t fixed by Wednesday, call up your sales contact and threaten to move all your business to another company unless they fix your problem stat, either in the form of an actually competent technician or a new laptop overnighted to you.